Garden of the Gods

Colorado Springs has the most beautiful city park called Garden of the Gods. It was given to the city on the condition that it would always be free to the public. Rod and Kathy really love this place and were very excited to take us there. We decided to go on Saturday because the temperature was in the 70s rather than the 90s.

We weren’t the only ones who had that idea…the park was VERY crowded. Rod is not one to admit defeat and try another parking lot. He must circle around and around until a spot opens up. We were lucky this day though. A few minutes into driving around the small parking lot , we found someone just pulling out.

The park is basically these big pieces of red rock that just appear in the middle of the prairie. There are many trails that you can take to explore the area. We first walked around the main park area and took pictures. There were people rock climbing and others scrambling around. There was this one young man who you could tell had never been rock climbing before. He couldn’t figure out how to rappel. I felt bad for him because it really isn’t difficult. In fact it is the easiest and my favorite part of rock climbing. Anyway, we walked around some of the big rocks and found some fun photo ops.

Our next stop was balancing rock. I was really excited to go here because I love scrambling over rocks! Most of the stuff we had seen earlier had signs that said no scrambling. Brett would keep pointing to them to make sure I saw them and didn’t break any rules. =) It made me sad. So balancing rock was for me. You can see in the pictures that it is this huge tall rock balancing on other rock. The signs told some of the history of the rock. I have included the pictures I took of the signs if you want to read about it. It used to be privately owned and the owner charged for pictures. A huge crowd cheered when Colorado Springs purchased the land and took the fence down. It was fun scrambling all over the rocks and taking pictures.

At one point, Brett, Rod, and I climbed up a huge rock and lost track of Kathy who stayed on the ground. I wondered aloud where Kathy was. Brett said, “That is easy. Right there!” I didn’t believe him and he pointed her out to me. He was able to instantly pick her out of a crowd. I tried calling out to her to have her take our picture, but she didn’t hear me. Then Rod tried and she started looking around. We waved our arms around so that she could find us. I included the picture she took of us and the one I took of her so you can see how hard it would be to pick her out. My husband just amazes me sometimes.

If you ever visit Colorado, you must visit Garden of the Gods.